Editorial: Awards Ceremony A Small Token Of Appreciation For Officers

Saturday

We add our congratulations and thanks to those of Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel and Sebastian County Sheriff Bill Hollenbeck to the men and women honored with awards Tuesday in Greenwood.

We add our congratulations and thanks to those of Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel and Sebastian County Sheriff Bill Hollenbeck to the men and women honored with awards Tuesday in Greenwood.

More than 300 local law enforcement officers, their co-workers, families and friends gathered at Bell Park Community Pavilion in Greenwood to see 40 men and women receive acknowledgement of their contributions to community safety through their work for the Sebastian County Sheriff’s Office and the Barling, Van Buren and Greenwood police departments.

The ceremony marked the first time the Sheriff’s Office has made such awards since 1998, according to a report in Wednesday’s edition.

Awards were made to units and individuals, to sworn personnel and unsworn employees. If 40 awards seems like a lot to distribute at one time, think of all the things that have happened since 1998. Sheriff Hollenbeck explained there was a lot of “catching up” to do.

“The men and women of these departments and agencies do an outstanding job, and far too often, we don’t recognize their efforts,” he said Tuesday.

Attorney General McDaniel echoed him: “I think that law enforcement in this part of the state clearly has some very distinguished men and women who serve their fellow man with real courage and honor. I’m just proud to be here to help recognize them and their families because law enforcement families very often don’t get the recognition they so dearly deserve.”

We cannot ever pay law enforcement officers or their families enough to acknowledge their daily sacrifices, let alone the ultimate sacrifice we pray they will never have to make. We can’t pay them enough because government budgets always seem too small, but even if they were infinite, no monetary payment ever could repay them.

We know it is not just the hours these men and women spend in service, but the hours they spending thinking about it while away from the job that cannot be compensated.

We know that it is not just the extra work that falls on individuals because agencies always are short-staffed, but the extra worry and danger they shoulder that cannot be compensated.

For families, it is not just the time their loved ones are away, but the time their loved ones spend at home carrying the burden of the poverty, violence, desperation and mental illness they face every day that cannot be compensated.

Thus, award ceremonies like this one provide a chance for citizens to remember what law officers do for them daily and to remind those officers that we are aware, that we know, that we appreciate the things they do, no matter how inadequate our expression may be.

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